Town may sue if jet flights increase

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), Susan Tuz THE NEWS-TIMES

Published
1:00 am EDT, Sunday, May 16, 2004

With Ridgebury residents worried that a plan to improve the runways will bring larger and more frequent jet plane traffic to Danbury Airport, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi has laid the groundwork for legal action.

Marconi has contacted a law firm in Washington, D.C., to discuss its representing Ridgefield in case Danbury's plan to cut trees along the flight path to the airport brings more jets to the area.

"Our concern is that what the
FAA
is telling the city of Danbury and what it is telling pilots are two different things," Marconi said. "We want to know what the current restrictions placed on the airport mean."

Local pilot
Ripp Quinby
has said that the FAA is telling pilots that they can continue to land charter jets at the airport with the present conditions there, while the city is being told it will lose airport runway length if the trees are not cut, limiting the planes that could land there.

Marconi also wants to know what the removal of the trees in a 15-acre area along the airport's flight paths will mean. His town is ready to put up a fight in court to protect residents from increased air traffic. But he hopes it won't come to that.

Ridgebury residents got worried when Danbury Mayor
Mark Boughton
announced the city's plan to comply with a long-ignored FAA mandate to clear from eight to 30 acres of trees near the airport's main runway.

The FAA has given the city a deadline of September 2005 to do the work or it will shorten the main runway by 1,000 feet.

Ridgebury residents have long complained about noise from planes approaching and departing on the airport's western flight path. Now the possibility of larger and more frequent jet plane trips has nerves on edge.

Boughton said Wednesday such concerns are "pure hysteria" on the part of opponents to the airport.

"Our intentions are to preserve the level of service that now exists," Boughton said. "We're not interested in bringing in charter flights" of 28-30 passenger capacity jets. "We're responsible for the health and safety of the people who live in the area of the runway, and as things stand with the tree situation, there's a liability there."

Marconi said that he and his board realize that Boughton's intentions are good but that the situation is a "tough one" so they need to get "to the bottom of things" and to be "prepared to act if necessary."

"The question is what FAA regulation will allow," Sherman said. "Under Part 139, Danbury holds limited certification that allows planes with up to 30 passengers. When the trees were not cut in 1990, the FAA gave directives that barred such planes landing. But once the trees are cut back, it will be up to the pilots if they land there or not. Not the mayor."

FAA spokeswoman
Arlene Salac
said Wednesday that technically, that is correct, but the scenario is unlikely.

"Danbury is a public airport so if the runway is long enough and strong enough, those planes can land there. But there has to be an economic need for them by the local citizens and businesses that use the airport," Salac said.

It is the "economic needs" of a community that drives that kind of growth in airport traffic, Salac noted.

"We get these kinds of concerns a lot," she noted, "but improvements to flight paths does not necessarily mean a lot more planes at the airport."

In that year, 120,672 total flights operated out of the airport, including flights touching down in Danbury on their way to another airport and flights that didn't go out of the local flight pattern.

In 2003, that number was down to 88,066 flights.

"Danbury had charter service in the 1980s," Boughton said, "and it was a failure. Some corporate jets come in now, but nothing compared to what we had in the early 1980s. The last thing we want is to have more charters coming in adding to the noise and traffic."

"It's in our interest to be good neighbors with Ridgefield," Boughton said. "The clearing of the trees is not a move on the city's part to expand the operation at the airport."

Marconi said Wednesday that he will invite Boughton to come and address the
Board of Selectmen
. The selectmen are speaking with town attorneys from Cohen Wolf.